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Changwon is the capital and largest city of South Gyeongsang Province, with 1,025,702 people in 2023, on Masan Bay between Busan and Jinju. The present city was formed on 1 July 2010, when the cities of Changwon, Masan and Jinhae merged, and it is ringed by mountains such as Bulmosan and Jangboksan.
People have lived here since the Bronze Age, and the name Changwon was first used in 1408 under King Taejong. In 1974 a national industrial complex was built and Changwon became Korea's first planned city, modelled on Canberra, with long straight avenues, many parks and a large share of the country's defence industry.
Visitors come above all for Jinhae's cherry blossoms in early April, at Gyeonghwa Station, Jinhaeru and the Gunhangje Festival. Masan adds Woryeongdae, Gwanhaejeong, St. Joseph's Church and the 3·15 cemetery, and the coast has Jeodo Bridge, dinosaur tracks and an autumn chrysanthemum festival.
The Jinhae Gunhangje Festival is a cherry blossom festival held in Jinhae for about ten days from early April, first staged in 1963. It grew from a 1952 memorial to Admiral Yi Sun-sin, and while it runs, parts of the naval base and the Korea Naval Academy open to the public.
Gyeonghwa Station is a small stop on the Jinhae Line, opened in 1926, whose tracks run beneath a long tunnel of cherry trees. It stopped handling passengers in 2006, but during the Gunhangje Festival crowds come to photograph the blossoms, and an old locomotive and carriages are on show.
Jinhaeru is a pavilion 15.2 metres high in Jinhae Beach Park in Gyeonghwa-dong, with a floor area of 477 square metres. It commands a wide view over Jinhae Bay and hosts cultural events, and beside it stands a statue of Han Ju-ho, who died in the rescue effort after the sinking of the Cheonan.
Ungcheon Eupseong is a walled town on flat ground in Seongnae-dong, Jinhae, built in 1439 to guard a trading port opened to Japan in 1407. It fell briefly in the Sampo Revolt of 1510 and housed Konishi Yukinaga in the Imjin War, and its east gate and part of its walls were restored in 2011.
Woryeongdae is the place in Masanhappo where the late Silla scholar Choe Chiwon taught his students in his last years before going to Haeinsa. A stone carved with the name Woryeongdae, said to be in his own hand, stands on the terrace with a memorial stele and a pavilion built by his clan in 1932.
Gwanhaejeong is a Joseon pavilion in a valley of Muhaksan, the only building left of Hoewon Seowon, an academy founded by disciples of the scholar Jeong Gu, who lived from 1543 to 1620. In front grows a ginkgo about 440 years old said to be planted by him, and rites are held each spring and autumn.
St. Joseph's Church, Masan was built in 1928 on the site where a French missionary had set up a thatched chapel in 1901. Mixing Romanesque and Renaissance styles, it is the oldest Catholic church in South Gyeongsang and keeps its original form well, and it was listed as cultural heritage in 2000.
The National 3·15 Democracy Cemetery in Guam-dong honours the people killed in Masan in the uprising against the rigged election of 15 March 1960, seen as the start of Korea's modern democracy movements. Laid out in 1968, it became a national cemetery in 2002 and was completed in 2003.
Jeodo Bridge links Gubok-ri in Gusan-myeon to the island of Jeodo. The red steel bridge of 1987, 170 metres long and nicknamed Masan's Bridge on the River Kwai, was kept for walkers when a new road bridge opened in 2004, and since 2017 it has had a glass floor 80 metres long.
The Gohyeon-ri Dinosaur Footprints lie on seaside rocks of the Jindong Formation in Jindong-myeon, where 400 tracks of 20 dinosaurs were found, made about 100 million years ago. They were left by plant-eating dinosaurs walking on two legs in herds, and the rocks show clear ripples and mud cracks.
The Masan Gagopa Chrysanthemum Festival has been held each autumn since 2000 to celebrate Masan's chrysanthemum growing. Farmers in Hoewon-dong were the first in Korea to grow them commercially in 1961, exports to Japan began in 1972, and Masan still has 13% of the national growing area.
Angol Japanese Castle stands on top of Dongmangsan in Angol-dong, Jinhae, built in the Imjin War under Wakizaka Yasuharu, Katō Yoshiaki and Kuki Yoshitaka, who took turns guarding this Japanese naval base. Its walls run 594 metres around and stand 4 to 7 metres high on the hill.
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